Tatar-Hischier-Bratt/Mercer was an elite matchup line. I expect to see a lot of that again. He is a puck hound that accomplishes a lot of what a more physical forechecker would do just in a different style. This addition makes the top-9 good enough to piece it together until the trade deadline. We can figure out something else then. Hard to do much better than this with the space we had. The $5 million extra we spent turning Marino and Bahl into Pesce and Dillon needs to pay off to make up for the rest. I think it will, but I definitely would have hoped for a better forward addition this time last week than Tatar, Noesen, and Cotter. Here's hoping it works out.
There's also an alternate reality where Tatar accepts our deal last year and we never traded for Toffoli. Who knows if that one is better or worse.